Is the Italian Government Risking Sun Stroke?

What a shame!

To overcome the current economic and financial crisis Italy plays the card of improvisation without considering the consequences. But what can get worse an unpopular decision? The answer seems to be: the mental instability of the decision maker.

I’m going to explain better what happened..

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Among the others actions to face the crisis, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced to abolish the incentives for eco efficency programmes put in action by the last Prime Minister Romano Prodi. We have to come back to 2005, when Italy pledged a 55% tax deduction over three years for solar heating and a tax credit on heating from geothermal sources and bio-mass used for district heating. It also established an incentive fund for ultra efficient buildings. An important step for a country so reluctant to follow Europen standards on reduction of carbon emissions.

And some days ago, the Italian government not only decided to abolish these incentives for the future, it even set a retroactive value freezing out the tax deductions granted during 2007.

Today arrives another change…

Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti revokes everything, a backward step to quiet that part of Italy (especially the north) that in the last year have invested a lot of money in renewable energy for private houses and companies.

Citizens, house-builders, “green workers” up in arms!

The real problem of this twisted game is that the Italian government is going to nullify the efforts made in the past to create an environmental awareness among citizens.

In this cooling-off period, who will be prepared again to risk in eco efficiency??

Sources: L’Unità - La Repubblica

Image courtesy of Gaetan Lee on Flickr under Creative Commons

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